Is Your Lipstick A Health Risk?

Leslie Carol Botha: Richard Diaz, author of Illness Definedand I discussed mercury and other heavy metals in women’s makeup in our radio show interview this past February. We discussed how people in the theater and movies are at such high risk.

So now we have Pharma grabbing our pelvic goldmines, Nestle/Monsanto our tits by patenting human breast milk (notice how they take the gender out of that one?) and now the cosmetic companies poisoning our bodies. Say what?

What does this have to do with hormones you ask? Heavy metals – mercury in particular wreaks havoc on our reproductive systems. Do I sound irritated today? Maybe I am premenstrual. Oh, too late – am way beyond that. What is being done to women’s bodies is what is irritating me. And women are suffering because of the attitude that this patriarchal industrial culture ‘owns’ our bodies – whether for sex or for profit.

Thank you Catherine Pearson for exposing this danger.

Toxic Lipstick? Metals In Some Lip Products May Be Dangerous, Study Says

Huffington Post
by Catherine Pearson
May 1, 203

Lipsticks and glosses may contain potentially troubling levels of metals, according to a preliminary new study.

Prior research has raised some concerns over the presence of lead in lipstick, but the new study is the first to suggest that many popular lip products also contain cadmium, chromium, aluminum and other metals — some at levels that may be harmful.

“We looked at nine heavy metals and found that all of them were present in most of the lipsticks, but not necessarily at really high levels,” study author Katharine Hammond, a professor of environmental health sciences with the University of California Berkeley’s School of Public Health told The Huffington Post. “Low levels of metals may not create a risk, but as the exposure increases, the damage can increase.” The results were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives Thursday.

“The metals that we were really most concerned about were cadmium, chromium, aluminum and manganese,” Hammond said, explaining that overexposure to each carries risks. Chronic, low level exposure to cadmium, for example, has been linked to serious kidney problems.

Glosses and lipsticks are of particular concern because of the potential for ingestion, Hammond said.

When used at what researchers called an average rate — around twice a day — the estimated intake exceeded acceptable daily levels for those metals, as established in prior public health efforts. In other words, they could pose a potential health risk.

Author: Leslie Carol Botha

Author, publisher, radio talk show host and internationally recognized expert on women's hormone cycles. Social/political activist on Gardasil the HPV vaccine for adolescent girls. Co-author of "Understanding Your Mood, Mind and Hormone Cycle." Honorary advisory board member for the Foundation for the Study of Cycles and member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research.